Fabio Viviani, chef, restaurateur and charismatic entertainer is a familiar face from Top Chef where he was voted Fan Favorite. He is also becoming a major player in the world of American restaurants, owning spots in California, Chicago and, soon, Miami. In his newest cookbook Fabio’s American Home Kitchen, Fabio offers over 100 recipes for American classic dishes, from Chicago-style deep dish pizza to spaghetti carbonara all with his own Italian flair. The recipes include basic ingredients that can be found in any well-stocked supermarket and are accompanied by stunning photographs and a taste of Fabio’s charm. Between the Covers was lucky enough to ask Fabio a few questions in the midst of his hectic schedule which includes opening a new restaurant and embarking on a book tour. Buon Appetito!

Between the Covers: Readers will relish your newest cookbook, Fabio’s American Home Kitchen, which is a feast for the eyes. What prompted you to put your Italian spin on American recipes?
Fabio Viviani: I’ve been in America for many years now, and I love it and wanted to put my Italian spin on American food. In my new cookbook, I try to keep my Italian heritage by keeping dishes lighter but also incorporating the deliciousness of American food with approachable recipes.

BTC: Your suggested menus are so helpful, as are your ideas for entertaining and make-ahead dishes. What are the five ingredients you think a home pantry should never be without? What is your best tip for saving time in the kitchen?
FV: Five ingredients a home pantry should never be without: olive oil, cold cuts, fresh pasta, eggs, herbs/spices. You can make anything with these ingredients in your pantry! My motto for saving time in the kitchen is always, ‘Keep it simple stupid, keep it stupid simple.’ If a recipe feels very complicated then it’s a problem! Simple recipes will always come out the best.

BTC: Thank you so much for making your recipes incredibly accessible to the home cook and your style so easy and encouraging. Who gave you your love for food and cooking? When did you realize you wanted to be a chef? Did you have any tough teachers or bad experiences that made you want to throw in the apron?
FV: For me it always comes back to my family. When I was eleven, my mom developed a problem with her hands and had to quit her job, so I decided to find a job since there was no money. I ended up working a night job unloading 50-pound bags of flour and baking pies from one in the morning until seven and did that job for two and a half years, which was how I was introduced to the kitchen for the first time. From a very young age I was surrounded by cooking with my family so I knew I loved it, but it wasn’t until I had my first kitchen job that I realized I wanted to be a chef. My grandma was my toughest teacher, probably because I wasn’t always the best student!

BTC: You grew up in Italy - was there much culture shock when you moved to the United States? What do you miss most about living in Italy? Do you get a chance to go return often?
FV: I go back to Italy about twice a year. What I miss most about Italy is the smell. Italy smells different; it smells of fresh cut grass. There are no traffic noises or people screaming, and very little trash around. If you ever find the smell of paradise, you will know you’re in Italy.

BTC: We know all about your hatred of cilantro and your love of Nutella. Any other food favorites or dislikes? What is your number one comfort food? What is your go-to dish for a romantic dinner?
FV: My number one comfort food is pasta, and, of course, a jar of Nutella if it’s available. My go-to dish for a romantic dinner is wine. If you have lots of good wine, the rest will take care of itself.

BTC: As a former contestant on Top Chef and Top Chef All Stars, what’s your take on reality television? Would you do it again?
FV: Reality TV is great exposure and it’s good for your business. However, there are many situations where reality TV does not make you look good and that can be bad for your business. Reality TV should be taken with caution, but I would definitely do it again if the opportunity came up.

BTC: Sienna Tavern Miami is about to open. As you build your restaurant empire, can those of us living in Baltimore hope to see a Fabio restaurant close by in the near future?
FV: Baltimore is a beautiful city and I would love to have a restaurant there one day!

It’s October, and that means it’s time to carve the pumpkins, get out the spooky decorations and get the candy ready for the trick-or-treaters. It’s also a time for great Halloween-themed picture books! Stories that feature our television friends are always popular with the kids, but Sesame Street: Happy Halloween!, written by Lillian Jaine and brightly illustrated by Ernie Kwiat, has an added treat for grown-ups. One by one, Elmo, Big Bird and the rest of the monsters from Sesame Street rap upon the Count’s castle door to visit him on Halloween. After all ten of the friends arrive, they hear another tap, tap, tapping. “Deep into that darkness peering, long they stood there wondering, fearing.” Who could it be? With literary elements from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” the lilting cadence of the text makes this a great story to read with your kids and discover the identity of the final guest coming to join in the spooky fun!

If your children enjoy songs as well as stories, then there are two great new picture books by Helen Ketteman to share! The Ghosts Go Haunting lends itself to be sung to the tune of “The Ants Go Marching.” At M.T. Tombs Elementary, things are getting a bit spooky as the ghosts go haunting one by one, black cats go hissing six by six and even the zombies are stumbling ten by ten looking for brains all over the school! With green faced witches and big eared goblins, Adam Records pictures are lively and fun. Ketteman’s other sing-along Halloween story is At the Old Haunted House, with darkly delightful illustrations by Nate Wragg. Anyone familiar with the children’s song “Over in the Meadow,” may find themselves singing the text of this story to your wee witchy one.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and Adrian McKinty’s latest novel The Sun Is God is based on a true mystery surrounding the German nudists known as Cocovores. It is 1906 in Colonial New Guinea and the body of Max Lutzow, who has apparently died of malaria, has been transported to the capital city. An autopsy proves otherwise and the suspicious circumstances of the death have to be investigated. Max was a member of the Cocovores, an extreme group of nudists who worship the sun god Apollo and eat only things that grow from the tops of trees. Will Prior had previously worked for the British military during the Boer War, and seems perfectly suited to solve this unusual crime. Paired with a captain of the German army and a feisty female travel writer, Will heads to the isle of Kabakon to solve the murder.

McKinty is a thoughtful writer and skilled at crafting a really good tale. The characters are solid and he spends enough time fleshing out Will Prior’s background and current circumstances to make him an interesting protagonist. The unusual setting is described in perfect detail and the book will have many a reader peering around for a stray mosquito. The book becomes all the more fascinating when reading the afterword, where the reader discovers that the Cocovores were an actual documented group of people living this lifestyle just after the turn of the century. Although this novel is meant to be a stand-alone, readers who enjoy McKinty’s style may want to pick up his novels featuring Detective Sean Duffy. The first in the Duffy series is called The Cold Cold Ground.

We library-goers are in the know: Reading to your little ones from an early age can provide an early literacy boost. And the earlier you start, the bigger the boost! Of course, for parents of more than one young child, the two or three year gulf separating bouncing baby from precocious tot can complicate communal story times. Baby has a penchant for crumpling pages in picture books. Your toddler is easily bored by the simple words and lack of plot typical of board books.

Enter Charles Reasoner.

This veteran author/illustrator features indestructible reads which are nevertheless engaging for older siblings. Bright, full-color images and sturdy board pages will hold a baby’s attention, while die-cut pages and rhyming text will keep older siblings amused. Eschewing the traditional rectangular shape, Reasoner’s playful curvilinear pages combine to mimic a three-dimensional picture, inviting young readers to enter the book and explore its interior scenes in greater detail. Beyond the colorful images and rhymes, Reasoner’s books also boast some surprisingly subtle touches, such as background character comments and seek-and-find opportunities for older children.

The lives of teenage girls are filled with intense rivalries, frantic friendships, evolving cliques and lots and lots of secrets. Those secrets provide the backdrop for Tana French’s latest psychological thriller The Secret Place. The headmistress of St. Kilda’s School has created the Secret Place – a bulletin board where the girls can indulge their fantasies, spread their rumors, and engage in a little malicious backstabbing. One day, a card is posted with the picture of Chris Harper, a handsome student boarding at a nearby boys school who was bludgeoned to death the previous year, with the caption “I know who killed him.” Sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey, a student at St. Kilda’s and the daughter of the chief of the Dublin Murder Squad, brings the card to ambitious Detective Stephen Moran, who’d like nothing better than a ticket out of the Cold Case Unit and into the prestigious Murder Squad.

The action takes place over the period of one day, with multiple interviews conducted by Moran and Murder Squad Detective Antoinette Conway, a prickly sort, sensitive to any sexist injustice. Moran and Conway slowly learn to trust one another, honing their interview skills as they slide ever deeper into a world of power games and manipulation, jealousy and rivalries. While desperately trying to solve the case, Holly’s father is ever-present, interfering in his position as Conway and Moran’s boss. Then there is the hovering spirit of the victim, who considered his girlfriends to be throwaway commodities, to be dumped upon any indication of neediness. But perhaps he truly found the one he loved, only to find that someone else objected.

Tana French is a master of psychological suspense and has once again produced a riveting page-turner. The teenage girls are authentic and raw; their complex relationships are navigated with a sure hand. The techniques used by the detectives to discover the truth are as varied as the labyrinth of lies and misdirection. Other titles by this Edgar, Anthony and Macavity Award-winning author include In the Woods, Broken Harbor, The Likeness and Faithful Place. Fans of John Verdon, Denise Mina and Stephen Booth are sure to find a deeply satisfying read.

Meet 11-year-old Ellie. She feels like something of a misfit in her artistic family. Her theater director mother and actor father wonder why she doesn’t have the theater gene, and Ellie worries that she’ll never find her passion in life. Adding to her loneliness, she misses elementary school and her best friend Brianna, who suddenly doesn’t seem to realize she’s even alive. Things aren’t going great for Ellie, and then Melvin appears.

Melvin is 13, grouchy and likes to wear old man’s clothes. He only wants to eat Chinese food. He argues with Ellie’s mom about the man she’s dating. He is forced to go to Ellie’s school and he gets detention for yelling about science. In fact, he sounds suspiciously like her scientist grandfather, but how could it be possible?

Through Melvin, Ellie discovers her hidden passion all along: science. She learns about famous scientists like Salk, Oppenheimer, Curie and Pasteur. She goes on madcap adventures and failed heists. She asks some difficult questions: are all scientific discoveries good for everyone? What happens if they’re not?

Written by three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Jennifer L. Holm, The Fourteenth Goldfish is making itself known on the Newbery Medal blogs as a front-runner for the prize in January. Told with heart, humor and mischief, this is a must-read for all young scientists starting to discover the world on their own and for the adults who want to cultivate the wonder of lifelong learning. It teaches us not to just believe in the impossible, but to believe in the possible!

We all have that friend who doesn’t have a filter and says whatever she thinks. Blogger Jen Mann’s new book People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots and Other Suburban Scourges is just like sitting down next to that friend and listening (and laughing) as she tells it like it is. Mann, whose writing style has been called “Erma Bombeck with F Bombs,” takes on modern inconveniences, marriage and motherhood with humor and sarcasm. Mann explains why she covets a minivan (a.k.a. mobile command center), the danger of wearing pajamas in the school pickup line, the complexities of enrolling your kids in summer camp and the challenges of navigating playgroup politics.

Dr. Mütter began his career as a surgeon and teacher at Jefferson College of Medicine in the middle of the 19th century at a time when anesthesia was not used during surgery and sterilization was haphazard at best. Mütter was determined to remedy those situations while focusing on using his talents to aid the physically deformed. As an innovator of plastic surgery techniques, he was also an expert on burns and cleft palates. Detailed accounts of actual surgeries performed by Mütter are peppered throughout the book and add to the compelling narrative. A character outside the operating room, Mütter wore colorful silk suits and cavalierly added an umlaut to his name. He was bitterly disliked by rivals who eschewed his ideas, but beloved by students who welcomed his interactive approach to lectures.

Sadly, the charismatic and talented Mütter died at 48, but through his speeches and lectures Aptowicz is able to reveal the complexity of Mütter’s character, his compassion and the lasting impact he had on the medical profession. In his lifetime, Mütter amassed a personal collection of almost 2,000 unique medical items, including models, illustrations and preserved anomalies. Among the objects he collected were skulls from around the world. Mütter donated his entire collection of medical curiosities to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and The Mütter Museum opened in 1863. The Museum now boasts a collection of more than 25,000 items which includes sections of Albert Einstein’s brain and the tumor from Grover Cleveland’s jaw.

Promising young voices in modern literary fiction are hard to come by, which makes Justin Taylor a man who deserves more recognition. In his newest collection Flings: Stories, Taylor confronts the awkward truths of adult life in stories centered around people who share a collective desire to be genuinely good, despite their misguided tendencies.

Both the titular story “Flings” and its continuation “After Ellen” follow people who are ensnared in the directionless, bleak traps of uncertainty that riddle our mid-20s. As friends, they live hollow lives in which they careen through dead-end jobs and relationships while waiting for what they perceive to be their real adult lives to begin. In the meantime, they’re left celebrating their miseries with compassion in their own beautifully tragic ways.

The more light-hearted "Sungold” stars Brian, a 30-something manager and bookkeeper at an organic pizza place. After nearly suffering heatstroke while wearing a questionably shaped purple mushroom costume in front of the restaurant, he gets busted cooking the books by a girl who happens to be there looking for a job. Her name is Appolinaria Pavlovna Sungold (seriously), and she knows what's up; she promises her silence in exchange for regular shift hours and a percentage of Brian's stolen funds. Brian hires her on the spot as both an act of self-preservation and an act of defiance towards the store owner, who only hires attractive college girls who enjoy fashioning the collars of their tie-dyed uniforms into deep, dangerous Vs.

Taylor’s prose is brilliant, humorous and unwavering. His characters are marvels; both uniquely individual and equally empathetic, and united by their searches for things to fill the voids in their lives.

Caitlin Doughty grew up in Hawai’i, and early on became “functionally morbid” with death. As a girl, she witnessed a shocking accident at a shopping mall, which cemented her desire to better understand the afterlife, which she parlayed into her college study of medieval death rituals. In her book debut Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, Doughty brings this difficult but universal subject to light. Despite the dark and sometimes gory content, she conversationally illuminates her year at Westwind Cremation and Burial in Oakland, California, and what she has accomplished since. If you never before knew the methods (and secrets) of “dignified” body disposal, you will after reading this exceptional book.

Doughty sprinkles her text with plenty of food for thought, whether it be historical and cultural tidbits about death, body disposal and mourning in cultures throughout time and worldwide, or when she gives her strong opinions about what we in America are doing right and wrong when it comes to handling our mortality. She daydreamed that one day she would open a funeral practice called “La Belle Mort,” which would take the unnatural aspects out of the process, but instead make for an open discussion about death and the hereafter. A chapter focusing on women’s roles in mortality culture includes a passage reminding the reader that “every time a woman gives birth, she is creating not only a life, but also a death.”

The author discusses corpses of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the stillborn to the elderly, the suicides and the drug overdoses, those who died surrounded by loved ones and those who died alone. Host of her own YouTube series, Ask a Mortician, Doughty also discusses how unfortunate it is that so few people know the law with regard to their loved ones’ corpses, nor do they have a plan of action. A timeless memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is both eye-opening and could start important topical discussions that too few of us are having.